


Grocery Shopping

by PanPower



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: I got that idea from a comic, I make up random words and hope that they aren't actual words in another language, I think it's called the death of magic or something, IronStrange, M/M, Multi, My tagging skills are nonexistant, Pepper is Tony's CEO and friend, Stephen can't eat normal foods, Stephen is Sorcerer Supreme, They have brunch together on the weekends, Wong and Rhodey are friends, Wong is a Beyonce fan, Wong is so done with these two, but they aren't dating, quite fluffy, tw:swears
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-05 10:10:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15861528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanPower/pseuds/PanPower
Summary: Stephen Strange is out of food and needs to go shopping. His boyfriend decides to tag along and everything is good until it isn't.





	1. Let's go shopping

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work in this ship, and I'm going to try and make it multi chapter. Thanks for stopping by and reading, I'll try and update consistently but school's starting so who knows.

“Wong, please tell me we aren’t out of food.” Stephen said, opening the cupboard doors in the Sanctum's kitchen, to his dismay finding it filled with Wong’s food, stuff you could buy at Stop and Shop.  
“I am not going shopping this week. It’s your turn.” Wong said, not even looking up from his book as he put an earbud back in, from which Stephen could barely her the opening chords of ‘No Scrubs’.  
“Fine,” Stephen mumbled as the Cloak flew from the other end of the dimly lit room, where it had been watering plants.  
Just as the Cloak reached him, the doorbell rang, its bells echoing in the vast Sanctum. The scene changed instantly, from a small kitchen with a reading Wong to a high-ceilinged room with a grand staircase and the front door. He opened the door to find Tony Stark, smiling, with a bouquet of flowers, who walked in and immediately was on his toes to give his boyfriend a kiss. Stephen smiled, ducking down so his boyfriend could kiss him hello on flat feet.  
“Hey there Stephanie. Miss me?” he smiled, pulling away with a gentle look in brown doe eyes.  
Stephen rolled his eyes, a contrast to the unconsciously soft smile he wore. He gave Tony another kiss, this one on his forehead. Now it was Tony’s turn to roll his eyes, pulling down Stephen to his height to give him another kiss, this one not as chaste as the one before. It deepened even more, and was turning out to be a makeout session, until Wong appeared, clearing his throat with his iPod nowhere in sight.  
“Stephen, do you want to starve?”  
At that Tony pulled back, not from shame, as Wong had caught the two several times before, but from curiosity.  
“Starve?”  
“Well you know how I never eat in front of you?” Stephen started, before realizing he had no idea what to say next. Tony looked at him, eyes imploring him to go on. He did, after a moment of trying to think how to explain to someone non-magical.  
“As Sorcerer Supreme, I do a lot of good, preventing planets from imploding and such, but when I do it tips the balance of good and bad in the universe. One of my fellow wizards would drown bunnies as payment for the good he did, and my payment is that I cannot eat ‘normal’ foods. My stomach has shrivelled as punishment for all the good I did for the universe.”  
He said all of this in the same tone he would to explain one of his artifacts, logically, like the surgeon he was at heart. Tony leaned over to pick up on of his hands, placing a kiss on the knuckles.  
“Then, my dear, we should go grocery shopping.” Tony declared, using a comically formal tone to mock Stephen’s.  
Stephen smirked. “You don’t want to go with me.”  
“Of course I do, we haven’t had a date in,” He paused, counting on his fingers “three days. Four days too long if you ask me. Plus, Bruce is busy with his new god-boyfriend, and Dum-E keeps using that fire extinguisher whenever I wear red. Also, I love you.” He added at the end, a bit too quickly.  
“Okay. Are you sure you want to wear your favorite press conference shirt though?”  
Tony frowned, considering. “It’ll be under my suit?”  
Of course, when you have the Sorcerer Supreme as your boyfriend, some problems are a non issue, like clothes. Even before Tony could finish his sentence, Stephen already had a shirt in his shaking hand that read “All the best science puns Argon” Tony smirked, but took it.   
“Thanks honey.” He stood up to leave and change, and even as he walked away he made sure his boyfriend had a good view of his butt. Stephen watched him go, an eyebrow raised and a smirk on his face at just how extra his man was. Wong watched them, making a noise of disgust at how obviously thirsty the couple was, before walking away. It was almost time for training anyways.

“Ready?”  
“Whenever you are, babe.”   
Stephen rolled his eyes, and opened a portal.  
“Remember what I told you. Harvest the tentacles in the rows in fields. Don't touch the green spheres. Do not engage with any living life forms. In, then out.”  
“Sure thing, let’s go.” He tapped his arc reactor, letting the nanobots slide over him, giving the last part a metallic edge as it came through his helmet. The two walked into the alien world, Stephen quickly getting to work. This world and the next two went by quickly, two people proving to be more efficient than one. Of course, eventually Tony got antsy, tired by the monotony that “grocery shopping” proved to be.  
The final planet was where he got his homemade nausea cure, it was probably the most dangerous, but all in a day’s work.   
“Sorry honey, things are about to get goopy.”  
“Stephenie, I can handle goopy. I’m the Iron Man.”  
Stephen only grinned as he opened a portal. A rush of hot air flew into their faces, like the planet was a giant burp.  
“Watch where you step.” Stephen murmured, just as Tony put his suit covered foot directly into an acidic pool of something blue.  
“Thanks for the heads up.”  
The portal closed, and they could get a good look of their new and final stop.   
“FRIDAY, what is this dump of a planet?”  
“Scanning. This is Planet XC, known to its inhabitants as Parshoo. There is life, but my scanners are blocked. I can’t get past that fog.”  
“Parshoo, huh? What are we looking for exactly Merlin?”  
“Those stalks over there. Don’t touch the red parts, and don’t let it wrap around y-”  
“What?” Tony said, having already reached down to the nearest stalk and pulled on the red, before Stephen could finish talking.  
“Tony no!” Stephen called, a bit too late, as several other stalks emerged from the pool of goo and pulled on his boyfriend, dragging him into their depths.


	2. The Search Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Tony missing somewhere in the planet, Stephen needs to go find him, which is proving harder than he previously thought it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this chapter is a bit longer than the last one. Let me know in the comments if you want longer chapters or shorter ones. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do next, so suggestions are appreciated!

“I said not the red stalks.” Stephen muttered as the plant’s tentacles went back to their previous position, waving towards an orange sky. A stray tentacle wiggled his way, and was quickly squashed underfoot. There was only one way to get Tony, and that was to fight off all of the tentacles and follow him through their root system.  
Right now, Stephen needed a plan. As the magical defender of an entire universe, a tentacle or two wouldn’t be a problem. These creatures were very instinctive, using sensors in the red stalks surrounding them to detect things in their environment, like Tony when he touched one. Instead of using strategy for combat, it was numbers from where they drew strength. And right now, they had plenty of numbers. Stephen’s analysis was cut short by a faint noise that came deep below the center of the mass of squirming tentacles. It was someone shouting. The voice let off a stream of curse words that faintly echoed around the field. That was definitely Tony.  
Stephen couldn’t stand here forever, the tentacles were slowly sensing his presence through the very weak motion sensors in the red stalks that usually relied on touch. Another stray tentacle attempted to wrap around his wrist, but it was quickly sliced in two with a single swipe of the sword that Stephen always had on his back. In doing so, Stephen stepped on a red stalk. Without a moment to register what he had done, two tentacles lashed out, attempting to wrap around his waist. The efforts were wasted, and with a boom boom whoosh both tentacles splashed into an acid pool that fizzed for a minute before the appendages melted with a noise that sounded like popcorn and smelled like old milk. Stephen wrinkled his nose before focusing on the several other tentacles that were attempting to envelope him. He began slashing at them with blades of magical energy. Where the red exterior of the tentacles were cut, clear liquid that burned his skin when he got to close oozed out, dripping everywhere. It made a sizzling noise like bacon when it hit the ground.  
It took a while, slashing before jumping back to avoid the now slimy and stinging grasp of the tentacles, but when the creature was finally slain, a chute was revealed, and while it wasn’t the expected root system, it was still a lead. The grainy land made an entrance to scraped silver rock that made up the core of this planet in a tube shape. Small bits of metal were apparent as Stephen went down, wrapped in his Cloak and glimmering magic. Clearly Tony had a harder time going down than Stephen did. He grimaced as he passed larger chunks of Tony’s suit. After a little more than a minute the chute finally started getting wider, leaving Stephen enough room to actually breath. Shortly after, the chute was no longer a tube barely wide enough for his shoulders, but a small cavernous space, surrounded by the same material that made up the entrance tube. Stephen looked around the empty, glittering space with jagged rock jutting from the ground, the walls, the ceiling. He cast a spell to check for any life, and none was found. He was still floating above the ground, wrapped up by a protective Cloak.  
“Okay, you can drop me now. We need to look for other exits to see where Tony went,”  
The Cloak, though it had no head or body, still managed to make the motions of a nod before swooshing away, something that confused Stephen no matter how many times he saw it in action. They split up and scoured the room looking for clues in the space. Surely something was hidden behind the boulders. Most were simply solid, naturally there. However, in his searching he found a small crawlspace hidden behind a short wall of stalagmites. He called for his Cloak to join him, but when the Cloak arrived, instead of securing itself on his shoulders, it pulled him to another spot in the room where there was a large boulder, held in place by the cave’s natural rock formations. By muttering a few words the boulder was lifted to reveal a second exit. With two options to find Tony, Stephen was torn. For an all-powerful sorcerer he was too worried to be at his full potential, especially with adrenaline from his battle rapidly leaving his body.   
“Damn it Stark. How am I supposed to get to you now?” He muttered, leaning against the craggy rock wall  
He was busy berating himself when he heard a noise come from the crawlspace, a sharp metal squealing that set him on edge immediately. With this small lead, Stephen was energized and determined, the thought of Tony in trouble keeping his feet moving.  
The crawlspace was very dark, very small, and very sharp. If there even was an exit to it, it was too far away to be seen. Stephen wasn’t a man much given to claustrophobia, even so, this tunnel of spikes was incredibly unappealing, but what choice did he have? Stretching his back one last time, Cloak behind him, already scrunched up into a little levitating ball of enchanted fabric, he started crawling.  
Halfway through the tunnel his hands started bleeding and his knees were very scratched up, the robes that used to drape over them were torn apart, two jagged holes where his knees showed. The planet was rather warm on the surface, maybe around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and the cave, while being slightly damp was only a few degrees warmer. However in this enclosed space, that he realized was slightly sloping downwards, the temperature was nearing the 90s. Combine that with the effort of crawling, and by the time Stephen saw any sign of an exit he was sweating. The palms of his hands, already covered with blood, pebbles and dust now had lines of sweat. He was more than a little uncomfortable and sore, his only comfort the Cloak silently floating behind him.   
A light shone from a small exit, fortunately it was only a few feet away. It may have been silent out there, or there was a quiet noise, but all Stephen could hear was his heartbeat in his ears and his breathing, short and labored, echoing in the small space. It had been at least five minutes in this tunnel.  
“Here’s for you Tony, you cocky piece of shit. Please-” He paused to breath before continuing his muttering “don’t be dead.”  
It was probably only a minute before Stephen made it to the exit, but it felt like ten, having freedom so close. However, now that he was there he hesitated, fighting against his screaming back, hands and knees. Cautiously, he poked out his head, unsure of what scene would meet him.  
The first thing he noticed was that is was a lot brighter. He blinked once, then forced his eyes open, going for a mind over matter tactic. It sort of worked, though tears sprang to his eyes, he was able to see the room behind the dots in his eyes. It looked like another cave. It looked like the one he came from. They even had the most important similarity; no Tony. He frowned and pulled himself to a standing position where he stretched, joints and muscles popping happily.  
“Same thing as the other room. Let me know if you find any hint of where Tony is. I could have sworn I heard his voice from this direction… He must be somewhere!” They began the same routine, searching for anything unusual. After a while of tedious searching that only got more and more frantic, Stephen got a call. Well, not a cell phone call, there was no data here. It was more like magical communication devices that he and Wong had, the range for these was everywhere except the dark dimension.   
“Stephen. Where are you? You’re twenty minutes late and today is your day to guard the Sanctum. I don’t care if Tony wants to go out on a date you need to-” Wong paused his scolding, sounding surprised, “Where’s Tony? He normally says something. If you guys are naked put on some clothes and portal over.”  
“Wong no can do. I’ve lost Tony.” Wong cursed, “I’m currently underground on Planet XC. He was taken by those weird tentacle plants. The red ones that are surrounded by stalks.”  
“Well you need to get him. Is there any way to track him?”  
“Pepper, his CEO might know. Or Rhodey.”  
“Okay, I’ll go ask them,” Stephen could hear a portal opening, orange sparks flying off of it, “I’ll be in contact. Go find your boyfriend Stephen.”  
“I’m,” Wong hung up as Stephen was midsentence “-working on it.” He muttered to the empty cave. “Well Cloak, did you find anything?”  
The Cloak shook it’s… Not head, but collar in a way that said no. It looked upset over this.  
“It’s okay. We’ll find him. For now,” Stephen opened a portal that led to the other cave they had come from, “let’s go retrace our steps.”   
He stepped into the darker cave, blinking again at the lack of light. He went over to the exit near the boulder, a tunnel he could easily stand in made of the same material everything else was, a mind numbing silver that glittered in the light from an unknown source. As he stepped in, Stephen couldn’t help but wonder out loud at the mysteries of this cave system.  
“But why did I hear a noise from that other cave? Is my mind playing tricks on me? Or maybe-” His musings were cut off by the Cloak tapping his face gently with the collar. Stephen watched as it flew from his shoulders, pointing with a bottom corner to a scrap of trademark crimson metal.  
“Tony.” There was steel in Stephen’s voice at this. Cautiously, he stepped to the exit of the tunnel, preparing himself for whatever awaited him on the other side.


End file.
